green tomatoes and banana jam

Yesterday the temperature outside was somewhere in the 80's. Not so today. It was somewhere in the 40's. First it rained, then came the hail, which turned into snow. None of the snow was sticking, and it was gone just as fast as it fell. But it was cold, windy, wet and miserable outside, so there was no canning today. And with the cold came the end of our garden, so in the only 20 minute window of sunshine we had today, I grabbed the kids and we headed for the garden to pick every last one of the green tomatoes left out there. It was a very cold, wet, and muddy job and I had to bribe them with hot chocolate, but they stayed and persevered.

In the end we managed to fill the wagon with all of the green tomatoes that were left out there, so I had better get busy figuring out some recipes for canning and cooking with them before long. Thank heavens the apples still left on the trees will keep in the cold weather.

I did go ahead and make two batches of 'Banana Jam', which was super simple and smelled delicious, not to mention a great way to use up a lot of bananas.

 

Banana Jam

 2 cups mashed bananas

2 cups sugar

2 TBSP. bottled lemon juice

   Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan. Over medium-high heat, bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Cook for 5 minutes at a moderate boil, still stirring occasionally. Ladle into jelly jars, secure lids, label, and store in the refrigerator. Use on toast, pancakes, waffles, or anything else you might think of. Yield- 2 jelly jars

 

Next on my list is 'Apple Pie Jam'. It sounds fun and since I am drowning in available apples, it's a perfect recipe fit. We are fairly certain three of our trees are golden delicious, but the other three, not a clue. They're a reddish gold color, so I will just have to pick a few and make a pie and a batch of applesauce to see if that yields any clues as to what variety they might be.

And I managed to sneak in a little sewing time during the weekend, and even though it wasn't much it was still heavenly, but more on that later.

this time we picked apples

Heidi came out for another visit today. We picked apples for applesauce and apple juice, and whatever else strikes our canning fancy. We won't have any shortage of apples considering we have 6 apple trees. That's a lot of apples.

Yep, that's my baby sister in the apple tree. She's picking the heck out of those apples. No really, she is!

Even after picking all of these, we didn't even make a dent in one tree. Five more to go. Looks like we have a lot more apple picking ahead of us.

Isobel was happy as could be playing with the wagon load of apples. I think she even snuck in a tiny bite or two. I like apples with baby bites the best.

We processed the last batch of grape juice, for a grand total of 58 quarts of juice from our grape arbor (hooray!).

And we started to make salsa, but we had to put it on hold until tomorrow. The weather is starting to turn very cold, and a lot of wind is forcast, so we will have to see just what we can get done this next week.

getting the last of the grapes

We have a big grape arbor on our property and we knew they were the type of graper perfect for juicing and jelly making. What we didn't know was just how many grapes there were going to be. A lot. All I can say is wow. We picked the last of the grapes this weekend, and they are all juiced and just waiting to be put into jars and processed.

The minute Craig headed for the grape arbor, Finn was right behind him, ready to help as much as his little 2 year old self could.

The grapes, all purple and Concord-y. Like I said, there were a lot of these.

Craig had to do all of the picking because there were spiders in the grapes leaves. And I'm a big sissy.

We ended up filling this sink basin three different times with all of the grapes.

Noah was a great help, and we finished rinsing and sorting the grapes in no time.

Having two steam juicers going at once made it go so much faster.

We got 27 quarts of grape juice from the first round we picked.

 Now to process the second crop we juiced...

total nerdification

This is Finn wearing what is usually referred to as his "Little Lord Fauntleroy" outfit for church.

My husband doesn't like it. The few Sundays I have dared to outfit Finn in this ensemble, Craig rolls his eyes repeatedly and warns me that all of the other children in his nursery class at church will make a beeline for him to give him the proper beat down he deserves for being dressed like a sissy boy.

I personally love it, it's my favorite Sunday outfit on him. To me it looks so classic. And lest you think I have crossed the line...

...let me direct your memories to two words. "Philip"& "Lederhosen".

Every. Single. Sunday. Enough said.

Nope, the line isn't even close to being crossed.

thrifted tee shirts with cool graphics, made over

Many times when I am thrifting, I will find an awesome shirt with super cool graphics, but in the wrong size for the recipient I know would love it. So I came up with this quick and easy solution. Seriously, this one is easy as pie....

I bought a t-shirt at the thrift store with a seriously fun Dr.Seuss pic on the front and it was only $2.

The good news- my son Mathes loves "Green Eggs and Ham"

The bad news- the shirt is an adult size Large.

The good news- I own a pair of scissors, lots of pins, and a handy dandy sewing machine.

So I laid the tee out flat, and cut around the graphic I wanted. There was some other writing underneath the pic that I did not want included, so it was easy enough to just trim it off as I cut around the graphic.

I then trimmed it all fairly close to the edges, leaving a small portion of white around the edges of the yellow screenprinting for ease in sewing and also because I like the way the raw edges look once the shirt is washed, they curl up slightly. It's all about personal taste here, so love it or hate it, you get to decide. That's what so fun about this shirt, you get the final say, it's all up to you.

Anyways, so I have my graphic cut and trimmed. I then grabbed this plain green tee (bought this @ Wal-Mart for $3.50)

and placed the trimmed graphic right where I wanted it,

and then pinned it in place.

Now make sure to slip something into the shirt while you're pinning so you only pin the graphic to the front of the tee. The last thing you want to have happen is to find that you have pinned all three layers together right as you are sitting at your machine, ready to stitch everything in place. I know, I have done this myself, so I am only trying to save you the swear words now.

I like to use one of my large straight edge quilting rulers, it works like a charm and I always seem to have one laying around within easy grabbing distance.

Then with a medium-long stitch length I stitched it in place all the way around.

 

 And voila! A child sized tee with a fun graphic.

Mathes loves this particular Dr.Seuss story, so he was thrilled that this shirt is for him.

 

This would also be perfect for that favorite t-shirt that your child has outgrown, but they are loathe to give up just yet. Get them to pick out a new plain t-shirt in a larger size (like I said, Wal-Mart has them for $3.50), then have them help you as you cut out the graphic and make their "new" favorite shirt.

You can also zig zag stitch over the edges of the graphic if you prefer a more finished look over the raw one, but if you do use a zig zag stitch, I highly suggest you use some stabilizer underneath or your t-shirt will stretch as you sew and look pretty wonky in the end. I speak from sad, frustrating experience. But using a straight stitch and leaving the raw edges exposed as I did requires no stabilizer, and like I said before, I just like the slightly raw look of that method.

However you do this, there are a lot of fun ways to mix this idea up. If you decide to go ahead and give this a try, make sure to send me your end results, I would love to see it!

lay tile floor in laundry room-check!

I sealed the grout on our newly tiled laundry room floor yesterday, which only took a few hours to dry. This meant that my washer and dryer have been moved back and hooked up again, so I can now tackle the terrifying piles of laundry that have gone unwashed these last 5 days. Which we were in desperate need of since I was a few loads of laundry behind the day Craig started in on that room. Translation: we stink. Or at least we used to. Last night I did three loads of laundry, so this morning we are all fresh as a daisy and no longer wearing "clean dirties". Thank heaven.

Now to get caught up by washing the other 4 loads left. Three of which are loads made up entirely of towels alone. Scary. The new floor was well worth any hassle though, I love it. Many thanks to my husband Craig and my son Dylan, you both did an amazing job putting the floor in.

demolition and rated ‘R’ flooring

So we ripped the sheetrock off of the walls in the entry way and all around the front door. I had no end of helpers as all of my children wanted in on the demolition too. And why not, you get to hammer holes in the wall and not get into big trouble. Even Dylan's friends that were over begged for a turn with the sledge hammer. Like I said we had no end of help. And of course I found my camera today, just in time to not get pictures of all of the cuteness of my kidlets yesterday ripping down the sheetrock, but of the last 45 minutes as we finished a few leftover spots today and then we were done. Blast.

I loved watching as Finn and Gracen put every bit of their little bodies into the swing of the hammer when it was their turn, they were both so determined. We did have to wrestle the hammer away from Finn numerous times as he attempted to knock holes in several walls that were not slated for demolition. He's such a helper.

We were finished in no time, and Craig is ready to start putting up the new sheetrock this week.

Ciel had a hard hat and safety glasses from her shop class last year, so of course we had to bust them out to make sure we were "safe" while we worked.

I totally rock the telephone line repairman look

 

And this pose is prime evidence I have been hanging out with Heidi a lot lately.

But in the end, Ciel rocks it cuter.

And weirder.

 

But still so cute.

The office door looks kind of forlorn now. Aww.

You would be amazed at the ugliness of the wallpaper hiding underneath it all. Seriously, it was country fruit and cottages in a bad stencil print gone very, very wrong. Since when did cottages and fruit exemplify "country"?

Anyways, we are well on our way to a new and improved entry way, and the mess is only temporary.

 

We also ordered our flooring today, which I am very excited about. We went with the "Bolivian Mahogany", if not for the gorgeous color, than for the exotic and sexy way it sounds as it rolls off the tongue. "Bolivian Mahogany". See. Who knew flooring could be so sensual. And this one is also reputed to be very hardy, and not easily scratched or dented. Just what I need in a floor with hordes of small children running rampant around here. And sometimes they have hammers.